"Between us? What need for anything between us?"
Priscilla ceased smiling and looked defiant.
"Maybe you better marry that half-breed and have done with it."
"It's more like—would he marry me?"
This was unfortunate.
"And why not?" Nathaniel shook the ashes from his pipe angrily. "A little more such performance as I saw to-day and no decent man will marry you! As for Jerry-Jo, he'll marry you if I say so! You foul my nest, miss, and out you go!"
"Husband! husband!" And with this Theodora dropped a cup, one of Glenn's mother's cups, and somehow this added fire to his fury.
"And when the time comes, wife, you make your choice: Go with her, who you have trained into what she is, or stay with me who has been defied in his own home, by them nearest and closest to him."
Priscilla breathed fast and hard. The tangible wall of misunderstanding between her and her father stifled her to-night as it never had before. Again she realized the finality of something—the breaking of the old ties, the helpless sense of groping for what lay hidden, but none the less real, just on before.